Wish We'd Lived
by Ericka Jane
Summary: Chastine oneshot, could be considered a sequel to Moments Like These. On the day Chas and John fight the final battle to keep earth from Mammon, Chas remembers and reflects on what John and him had or thought they had.


A/N Ok, this could be considered a continuation of 'Moments Like These' but for the most part it's an independent Chastine fic, and a rather depressing one too (sorry it's not sweet like the last one :( but I hope you enjoy this and thank you so much for your awesome feedback from Moments Like These, I'm really flattered. Review please!

Chas's POV

I think I knew the moment we stepped into the hospital that one of us was going to die. There was something about the way that John and I had parted, me to stuff a cross into the water supply, and John to kick some ass, that started a dreaded feeling in me.

"What's that?" I asked as a deep, non human voice filled the overly white hallways.

"Devil speak," John replied, looking down the hall from where the voice emitted from. He turned back to me, trying to look like he usually does when he goes to do a job, hard and determined. But right now he looked worried, and maybe even scared of the upcoming events.

"I'm ok," I replied, seeing his concerned eyes pierce through me.

John nodded, "are you sure?"

I didn't even answer, determined not to look at his face again, mostly out of fear. Fear in the sense that this very well may be the last time I see John alive, because even if I did survive the fight we were about to throw ourselves into, John had cancer and he wasn't going to live much longer. I remember the night he came home from 'going out,' as he said, perfectly as if it had just happened yesterday.

The door opened rather softly which was an unusual entrance from John, on any other day he would've slammed the door open and slammed it back shut as if it was an offending object, and then he would proceed to storm into the apartment. Today was different, today was wrong. John came into the living room, looking a little paler than usual and stoic, which to say the least wasn't too much different from any other day, but around me, his mask dropped. Why was today different? He rushed me, I was completely unsuspected to his advance, and kissed me. There was so much emotion into that one kiss, anger, sadness, possessiveness, and I could feel it all as his tongue explored my mouth frantically. I kissed him back of course with as much passion as he was showing me, but something stopped me in mid kiss. Was that cough syrup I tasted? I pulled back.

"What's wrong?" John asked, disappointed that I cut it off.

"I could ask you the same thing," I replied.

All John did was look at me with feigned confusion, as he new exactly what I was talking about.

"Is Robitussin your new alcohol or something?" I asked half serious, half joking.

John sighed softly, as if to say 'Don't make me tell you this,' and looking back, I almost wished he hadn't.

"Chas, I have lung cancer," John said bluntly, softly.

I froze and I think the rest of the world did too as I repeated the words in my head, 'I have lung cancer.'

"It's not bad, right? I mean, they can remove it, right?" I asked, talking much faster than I needed to.

"It's aggressive, as the Doc put it, there's nothing they can do," John said

"You're telling me that you're going to die?" I asked forcefully as I was trying not to cry, I was trying to be strong for John.

"Yeah," John whispered in reply.

"H…how long?" I asked, my voice cracking with on coming tears.

"A year at the most," John said, still whispering.

I finally felt a violent sob rip my chest, and as soon as it came out, John had pulled me into his arms, holding me as tears freely flowed down my cheeks.

"It's gonna be ok," John said into my hair.

I yanked away from John's safe arms in anger.

"How can you say that!" I roared "How can you say everything's going to be ok when I'm about to lose the one person in this fucking world that I care about!"

I collapsed on the couch behind me and put my head in my hands, I was no longer sobbing, but there was definitely tears still leaking from my eyes. I felt weight shift beside me, letting me know that John had sat next to me.

"I thought I finally had you," I whispered.

"I did too," John said softly as he took me into his arms again, and I knew that he was crying too.

Things were different from that day on, we tried to act like there was nothing wrong, that everything was as normal as it should've been, but what we ended up doing, was tearing ourselves apart. Which is why John was so fascinated with Angela I think, she didn't know about the horrors that he had to deal with, she didn't know his past, and she didn't know his future. I expected John to help her, it's what he did, but I wasn't expecting him to get so involved. He said he wasn't, he said he was only doing his job, he said he loved me. Funny how things like deadly illnesses usually bring people together but in our case, it tore us apart. We did it on purpose almost, we didn't want to lose each other, we didn't want to see the other person waste away and be affected and hurt by it, we wanted to save ourselves the pain. Of course we didn't say this out loud but we knew that's what we were doing. So now, today when we went into the hospital to save Angela and the world, I couldn't help but want to take back all the time we had stolen from ourselves and live it like we should've, live it like we were in love.

As John and I recited the Latin incantation over Angela's possessed body, I started to wonder if John really did love me, we hadn't said it to each other in what seemed like forever, but you don't need to say it to be true, right?

We finished the incantations and Angela was seemingly fine, and John looked at me.

"You did good," He said.

"Yeah?" I asked

"Yeah," John confirmed.

I knew in that moment I was about to die, I don't know how, I just did. I wanted to open up my mouth a blab everything to John, tell how sorry I was and how much I really did love him, but I never got the chance. I felt something pull me from the inside and I was thrown to the ceiling and back down again, thrown to the ceiling and back down before I fell to a broken heap on the tiled floor.

"Chas!" John cried and I heard him scramble to me as fast as possible.

I couldn't speak; my lungs had been punctured from my broken ribs, letting the air pass through easily.

"I'm sorry Chas, I'm so fucking sorry I let this happen," John said, and I shook my head weakly.

"Not your fault," I wheezed.

"Yes it is, I let you come with me, I let you and…"

"I love you, John," I managed to croak out, cutting him off because I knew I didn't have anymore time.

"I love you too, Chas," John sobbed out.

The last thing I felt was John's lips on mine, and it was perfect. It was a kiss that would've happened between us before we found out John had cancer, it was tender, passionate, and loving, it was everything that we were, or everything we would've been and in that moment, I knew John wished we'd have lived too.


End file.
